They call themselves bosom buddies in a campaign against breast cancer.

The disease once threatened the life of their mother, and two years ago, it killed their sister, Adrienne Joe.

Joe’s the inspiration behind the family’s team name — Adrienne Bosom Buddies — emblazoned on the T-shirts her three sisters and other relatives will be wearing Saturday in the Susan G. Komen Dallas Race for the Cure.

“This signals that we’re all in this together,” said Stephanie Cheatum, one of Joe’s sisters. “It’s so important because so many members of my family, including my first cousin, have been affected by breast cancer.”

On Thursday, Cheatum, 41, showed up at NorthPark Center to finish registering the 25 members of her family for the highly anticipated event.

Saturday is the 30th annual race in Dallas, but it’s the first race here since the national charity sparked a public uproar earlier this year when it suspended — then reinstated — grants to Planned Parenthood.

The political fallout was fast and furious, causing a precipitous drop in donations and registrations around the country for Komen’s signature moneymaker.

With few exceptions, the races have lagged — significantly, in some cases — in donations and participation this year.

The Dallas event — 1K and 5K walk/runs — is on track to draw nearly 23,000 participants, about 7 percent fewer than last year’s 24,491 entries.

And its fundraising effort is lagging 13 percent behind the $2.6 million it collected last year, organizers said.

Komen Greater Fort Worth, which held its race in April, saw participation drop 23 percent — from 13,780 registrants last year to 10,574 this year. The event raked in about $1.3 million this year, compared with $1.5 million last year, about a 13 percent drop.

“It’s a mixed bag, to be honest with you,” said Andrea Rader, the Dallas-based spokeswoman for Komen’s national office. “Basically we’re kind of midway through our busiest season in terms of the races.”

Nationally, Komen has 106 races each year, and 70 of them are held in September and October. The charity is tallying its fund-raising and registration numbers for the year with 28 more races to go.

“What we’re finding are two things — and I can’t give you any real numbers because we’re in the middle of the race period — but I can tell you it seems like the further we get away from the events of February and the closer we get to the people we’re helping, they’re starting to come back,” Rader said.

But clearly, she said, the flap earlier this year had an impact that’s still rippling in some quarters.

Komen Greater Fort Worth, which serves Tarrant, Parker, Hood and Johnson counties, held its race just two months after the February fallout. So organizers expected they would feel the brunt — and they did.

The fallout, however, helped bring clarity and a renewed sense of purpose, said Liz Heck, a spokeswoman for the charity.

“We feel like the community at large now has a better understanding than ever about where the money goes,” she said. “I feel like people get it now better than ever before.”

Though Dallas is also feeling the pinch, the 13 percent lag in fundraising is less severe than what other affiliates have faced, said Jennifer Legere, executive director of Komen Dallas County.

“This is huge in the respect that I’ve heard some of our sister affiliates are down 20 or 25 percent, so we feel blessed,” Legere said.

Still, the fundraising goal this year remains ambitiously higher, at $2.71 million.

She said the political misstep in February, along with the national leadership shakeup that followed, has “given us a platform” to remind people of the charity’s critical role in fighting breast cancer.

“The Race for the Cure isn’t just pink and fluff,” Legere said.

She acknowledged people have “spoken up and said I don’t want to support you,” but “nine times out of 10,” the charity has been able to win back supporters.

“We’ve had several sponsors who’ve stepped up more,” she said.

One of them is Kroger, which traditionally has about two or three dozen employees participating in the Dallas race.

This year, the grocer has “close to 1,000 registered walkers, which is a substantial contribution,” said Gary Huddleston, director of consumer affairs for Kroger Southwest.

Huddleston said the uproar over funding for Planned Parenthood “didn’t factor in at all” in the company’s decision to continue providing close to $70,000 in cash, gift cards and products to support the race.

“We feel like their mission is strong and it resonates with our customers,” he said.

But Kroger, which has about 85 stores in North Texas, decided to get more involved this year because one if its executives lost a sister to breast cancer last year.

“We wanted to honor her and make sure we were highly supportive of the Dallas Race for the Cure,” Huddleston said.

That sentiment was expressed time and time again at NorthPark Center, where Komen Dallas organizers were busily setting up for the race and conducting on-site registrations Thursday.

Like many of the other participants signing up for Saturday’s race, Cheatum said the charity’s mission is too important to let the controversy derail it.

“I just don’t think anyone should’ve pulled out if they can help someone who can’t help themselves,” said Cheatum, a patient-care technician.

After Cheatum’s mom, Corene Newton, now 70, had a malignant lump removed from her breast in 2003, the family decided to join the fight against breast cancer.

Cheatum and her sisters — Tracy Gulley, Aretha Newton and Joe — signed up for their first Komen Dallas race later that year.

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